Winner of the Rockower Award, the highest honor in Jewish journalism, this blog contains random musings of a journalist, father, husband, son, friend, poodle-owner, Red Sox fan and occasionally-ranting rabbi, taken from Shabbat-O-Grams, columns, speeches, letters, sermons and thin air. "On One Foot," the column, appears regularly in the New York Jewish Week, as well as a blog for the "Times of Israel."

Friday, February 15, 2013

Announcing the publication of Peace in Our Cities: Rabbis Against Gun Violence

Announcing the publication of Peace in Our Cities: Rabbis
Against Gun Violence.

With a Foreword by Rabbi Jill Jacobs, Executive Director of T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights; Introduction
by Pastor Michael McBride, Director, PICO Network’s Lifelines to Healing
Campaign and spiritual leader of The Way Christian Center in Berkeley, CA; an Afterword
by Teny Oded Gross, Executive Director, Institute for the Practice and
Study of Nonviolence; and edited by Rabbi Menachem Creditor, the
spiritual leader of Congregation Netivot Shalom in Berkeley, CA.

On January 29, 2013, nine rabbis from across the United
States joined the Pico Networks Lifelines to Healing Clergy gathering at the
White House. More than 80 faith leaders raised up their voices and prayers for
a moral response to the scourge of gun violence plaguing the country,
especially in the inner-cities. From that gathering, Peace in Our Cities:
Rabbis Against Gun Violence was born.

The collection of 21 essays, by some of the leading voices in
rabbinic social justice, call for the recognition that we cannot stand idly by
in a country where thousands of people lose their lives to gun violence each
year. Rabbi Joshua Hammerman of Temple Beth El in Stamford, CT., who attended
the Washington conference, is among the contributors.

The prophet Jeremiah told the weary and heart-broken
exiles of Jerusalem that they should "seek the peace of the city."
Rabbis, along with faith leaders of every tradition, teach that a broken
society is one in which we fail to take care of others. This book asks some
very hard questions of America in the midst of a Gun Violence epidemic, and
presents a passionate, hopeful, healing response to a moment of national pain
and fragility. The rabbis in this collection ask: How many innocent deaths will
it take for our elected officials to respond with moral conviction? How long
must America wait to acknowledge that we lose 30+ American lives to Gun
Violence every day, scarring our national life? How many tears must be shed?
Learn, connect, and be inspired with the voices of today's rabbinic
leaders.